Tag Archives: Antonion Fatas

Spurred by the heated debates about the need for fiscal stimulus in the US, the issue of Ricardian Equivalence has taken center stage in the economic blogging sphere recently. While it is an impossible task to identify any exact line of events on the net (and possible also irrelevant), this round appears to have been initiated by an article by Justin Yifu Lin (pdf), Chief Economist of the World Bank, who got criticized here by a balanced Antonio Fatás. Fatás notes, among other things, that Lin’s fears that fiscal stimulus could be caught by the “Ricardian trap” (i.e., neutralized by offsetting increased private savings) are unwarranted. While Lin’s endorsement of … Continue reading →